# Cumings, Bruce, "Is America an Imperial Power?," Current History (November 2003). 1.9-11

Imperialisms, Ancient and Modern, Cumings, Bruce, "Is America an Imperial Power?," Current History (November 2003)., Lines 1.9-1.11. Latin.

Canonical: https://interlinea.aeterna-institute.org/library/latin/imperialisms-ancient-and-modern/cumings-bruce-is-america-an-imperial-power-current-history-november-2003/1.9

Reconstructing the foundations of peace and prosperity would require new mechanisms, Acheson asserted: new ways to make capital available for industrial production,. the rapid removal of tariffs, "a broader market for goods made under decent standards," "a stable international monetary system," and the elimination of "exclusive or preferential trade arrangements." Acheson emphasized the world economy, but in good realpolitik fashion he also called for the immediate creation of "a navy and air force adequate to secure us in both oceans simultaneously and with striking power sufficient to reach to the other side of each of them."
This lawyer and statesman later had the opportunity to implement these ideas, first at Bretton Woods, then with theMarshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine in 1947, and finally, in 1950, with NSC-68, the executive order implementing the policy of "containing" communism. Aclieson is the person who comes closest to being the singular aithitect of American strategy from 1944 to 1953—and he knew it ( Present at the Creation was his memoir of the period). The captains of the American Century like Acheson were those who thought in "both/and" terms: Europe and Asia, the open door and partnership with imperial Britain, a world economy with no ultimate limit. As he later put it in reflecting back on his Yale speech, he had really sought at the time to "begin work on a new postwar world system."
The makers of the postwar order—Roosevelt, Stimson, Acheson, McCloy, Kennan, Lovett—were theorists (even if of a practical bent). They had ideas, and ideas have consequences. They were all liberal modernists, of course, but Acheson had a full appreciation of the theory of world economy while other architects of the postwar world, such as George Kennan, had almost none. British hegemony gave Acheson his model for how to run the world, conceived along the linesof Great Britain's role after 1815—not as an imperial colonizer, but as the power of last resort for keeping the world, and particularly the world economy, from spinning out of control. The name for American leadership in this sense was hegemony .

---

Imperialisms, Ancient and Modern, Cumings, Bruce, "Is America an Imperial Power?," Current History (November 2003).. Text: The Latin Library (thelatinlibrary.com), used with permission. Changes: HTML markup removed and the text divided into reading sections by Interlinea.
License: Used with permission (https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/about.html). Source: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/readings/cumings.html.